5 years ago today a small, fidgety, bright-eyed girl
sporting a very short haircut and a red sweatsuit with “NKIE” written on the
back, looked at us for the first time and said, “Mama?” and “Baba?” (Mandarin
for Daddy). We nodded yes and a few
minutes later she cheerfully slipped her hands into ours and walked out of the
huge orphanage, the only building she had been - other than hospitals - for the
last six years of her life -- as if this was all normal.
The city was full of confusion and sights and sounds she had
probably never experienced, and her new companions were strange-looking and didn’t
understand a word she said (and were pretty freaked out themselves), but she just kept chatting and singing to
herself, bouncing along as we traveled from place to place -- as if this were
all normal.
Even though I had seen her pictures almost a year prior to
that and *knew* she was meant to be in our family (what a story that was!) I
still was braced for all kinds of hard adjustments and trials. But they never really came. There was a miserable airplane ride and a few
hard moments on a few hard nights, but other than that, our jigsaw pieces of
lives all just FIT. Jinna Rai slid into
our family and we formed around her so easily.
It has all felt quite… normal.
Right from the beginning her heart knew so well how to
love. While staying in the hotels in
China whenever Pete would leave to go get something and then come back, she
would go running at him yelling delightedly, “Baba! Baba!” and crash into him for a big hug. She still greets anyone she loves with huge
enthusiasm and is quick to tell them how much she likes them and has missed
them. That is her norm. Whatever our normal was before we met her, it
is full of so much more love now.
